#while I'm still doing bullet point brain dumps for other parts

[thewordsmither]

TEOE Chapter 18 Snippet

Hey y'all! I'm almost done with chapter 18 and I thought that I'd give you all a little snippet of the first part. This chapter is not continuing from the cliffhanger of 17 but instead picks up on Mat's side of things and resolves what occurred in chapters 15 and 16. Anyways, here you go. [Excerpt begins]

Hiding a dead body was not necessarily how Mat thought his day would go. Doing it while his friends shouted at him was decidedly worse.

“He was trying to help us, you idiot!”

“We would have been buried alive if it weren’t for him!”

“You shot someone!”

Mat knew they had a point. Whoever this person was clearly helped them out of a tight spot. It would have been more appropriate to thank him and maybe offer to buy him a drink. Instead, Mat had shot the poor fellow. But this man was different. He was like the others. The ones that had taken Louella. He had to be. The mask was certainly no indicator of a good person.

“Let’s . . . Let’s not freak out. We’ll figure this out.” Mat replied flatly. He felt like he was floating. The sound of the gun kept replaying in his mind as he watched blood continuously trickle from the man’s head.

“‘Let’s not freak out’ says the guy who just put a bullet in someone’s brains,” Howard muttered mockingly.

“Sorry. My bad. Let’s all run around and panic because that’ll do so much for us,” Mat snapped back sarcastically.

“All of you need to calm the fuck down,” Ann interjected anxiously. Her hands fiddled with the hem of her sweater, pulling at the loose strings.

“Yeah, now’s not the time for fighting,” Garrett said weakly.

“Things would be great if Paul was with us. At least I’d have someone else on my side,” Howard continued to complain. He paced around, kicked some loose stones and then paused. “Wait, where the hell is Paul? I thought he was coming with us?”

Mat and Ann went silent.

“He must be busy.”

“Probably out of town.”

The two spoke over each other in their attempt to find a reason. Mat looked at Ann. Ann looked at Mat. Then both looked at Howard.

“You mean Paul never showed up and neither of you took notice until now?” Howard said after a moment of incredulous silence.

“You didn’t notice until now either!” Mat retorted angrily. “Besides Mary and Rick didn’t as well. What friends we are.”

“Paul is always flaking out on us though. You know how he is. He’s probably fine and we have bigger things to worry about,” Ann said before Howard could snap back. She gestured shakily at the body that was still bleeding out between them. “We should, um, take care of this first.”

“Yeah, let’s just stick him in the trunk and dump him in the river. Really makes us seem innocent,” Howard huffed.

[Excerpt ends]

I'll see you soon readers :)

[witchofverdure]

how working for myself and the general need to grind for income has kind of ruined me

The other night, I sat in the livingroom with "nothing to do". I had checked off everything on my to-do list for the day. I sat on the couch just staring off out the window feeling kind of lost.

"What do I do?"

T replied, "You don't have to be doing anything. You can just watch TV."

It dawned on me just how long I've 1) not had a set schedule or routine and 2) was constantly doing work of some sort even while "enjoying" hobbies.

I quite my corporate job in February 2023 to pursue art/photography freelancing. Let me tell you one thing: This shit is more difficult than my desk job. Yes, I hated my desk job. I had 3 of them up to that point since 2017, and I got bored of each one despite the fact I was rather successful at my last one. But the pay wasn't good for the area I lived in, and there was no moving up out of my position (I was hired to make the position a thing and, despite being there for three years and telling them the what the logical promotion would be, they just asked how long I saw myself doing my current job). Depression probably pushed me to quit sooner than I should've, too.

Since February 2023, I have constantly been grinding. Editing photos, planning social media posts, making photoshoot advert graphics, budgeting, trying to network...

Trying to think how I could bring in money.

Gone were the days of a bi-weekly check in the same amount every single week. Gone were the days where I'd still get paid when I didn't do any work. Now I'm doing BTS work and not getting paid. Before I got my part-time job, I would go weeks without any income.

I'm not saying I haven't indulged in any hobbies for 2 years. I am saying, though, I've had difficulty enjoying them. I feel guilty for not grinding. I feel guilty for not scrolling through social media to engage with posts in order to keep my page relevant so I reach new clients. I feel guilty of setting a No Work Past 9:30pm boundary.

When I worked a corporate job, hell, even when I worked in the food industry, I cherished my free time and my free time was buzzing with joy. I dove so deep into my hobbies. Now I sit on the couch at 10pm getting stressed over the fact I should be grinding out my edits. So stressed that I end up not even watching TV.

I have not played a video game since March 3rd, according to my Steam profile. And before that? I can't tell you. I've barely finished one book this year. I try to create a bullet journal to foster that art bug, but other than that, my other art hobbies lay collecting dust. It took me months to watch Longlegs and Late Night with the Devil when, in the past, I'd see movies opening weekend. I don't even know what shows people watch now because I only watch things I can have on in the background as I work.

If I'm not working in some manner, I don't know what to do. The idea of doing any of my hobbies makes me stressed or just uninterested.

Would I go back to a corporate job? I think about it. I think about how a steady paycheck may be better for my mental health. It'd definitely be better for my bank account. I think about how I enjoyed anime conventions a bit more when I didn't have to work the whole weekend doing shoots. But I like doing what I do now. I just wish the grind didn't have to be so hard.

I need to set a solid routine of when I do photography work. That's the first step to improving anything. I need to not do work while I'm out at the coffeeshop - that should be reserved for reading. I need to tell myself an hour of gaming won't make me lose any money. It could make me money if I streamed again!

This is why people slip further into depression. This is why people have breakdowns. I have made myself into someone who just works. That needs to change

Thank you for coming to my brain dump. Organizing my thoughts has taken me about a half hour, and sitting at my computer not doing work-related things has been nice. It's a start

[krypticcafe]

Happy Super Late Valentines </3

rating: PG-13/teen

pairing: harry warden/the miner x gn!reader

warning(s): reader had a boyfriend, brief mention of cheating, small mentions of blood, violence, and gore, and harry being scary, for j u s t a bit.

synopsis: you had a shitty valentines day, and harry comes to pick up the leftovers.

a/n: okay, I haven't written fanfic in years, so please excuse me if this comes off as an uber corny dumpster fire. I'm just trying to have fun :'))))

So what if it's Valentine's Day?

So what if you wanted to spend a peaceful time with your boyfriend at home with some baked cookies?

So what if you accidentally burnt those cookies?

So what if you were so paranoid that it felt like someone was watching you the entire time?

So what if your boyfriend pushed asked you to go with him and his friends in some spooky abandoned mineshaft?

So what if you were surrounded by couples making out in a cramped, dark, and cold nooks and crannies and one of them happened to be your best friend and your now ex-boyfriend?

So what if you lashed out, dumped him, stormed out of the cave only to get more lost due to the heat of your anger?

It's fine. It's whatever. Could be worse.

Or at least that's what you told yourself to cope with the shredding of your heart and the burning tears.

Oooooh, but that bastard! The audacity to cheat on you, with her of all people! And he was such an idiot to do so after inviting you to come! Did he not think for a fraction of a second that he'd get caught? Or did all the blood in his brain just go to his dic-

God, what were you thinking, coming here with those guys, giving him the time of day?

Looking back on things, you realized you dodged not a bullet, but a whole missile. But did it reslly have to be on Valentines Day of all days? The world really is just that cruel.

And it was about to get even more cruel.

Screams, maybe half a dozen of them, echoed and bounced off the walls of the cave, finding their way to you. At first, you assumed the group was messing with each other. Either way, you could care less.

Then they started growing more frequent and louder, and you scowled.

'In here after that fiasco? Really? Christ, I'm never going out with any of them ever aga-'

Then you heard a blood-curdling scream. Suddenly, you started to prefer the possibility of what you originally thought they were doing.

Your head whipped to the tunnel left of you as you heard a scream far too familiar, and your body began to curl in on itself as you sat in a ball in the corner.

Footsteps began beating from the same corridor where the scream originated.

Anticipating the worst, you wiped the blur from your eyes, took a deep breath, and braced your hand over a nearby stone that you deemed good enough to buy you some time.

The footsteps grew louder, but remained at a painstakingly steady pace, as if to tease your demise. There was a loud thunk! before the screech of metal scraping rock pierced your ears. You were half expecting to see the grim reaper at this point.

Instead, you were greeted with someone else who might as well be the same person. They were tall, broad, and clad in nothing but a full set of miner's gear. Not a single speck of skin peeked past any part of their clothing, and their mask even managed to hide their eyes behind the dark lens. With what little brightness there was provided by the dim cave lights, you just barely noticed the glistening of the blood on their uniform and the way it dripped down the tip of their pickaxe.

You recognized him as the man from the town's local urban legend. It always seemed cheesy and way too cliche to you but here you were, face to face with the man, the myth himself. Would he make you another one of his victims tonight? Would your death become just another story told at the campfire? The thought made your stomach turn.

The two of you stayed in silence, your hand still gripping the stone while you stared at the miner, searching for any movement that suggesting that you'd be the next one to eat metal. But all you could see was the way his chest heaved, rising and falling from what you understood as the cause of all those screams from earlier.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

Clank!

To your surprise, he set down his pickaxe and approached you, kneeling down to your curled form. His head tilted slightly, as if to get a better look at you. A part of you wished you could see his eyes, wondered where he stared, why he stared. As embarrassing as it is to admit, you froze like a deer in headlights, squeezing your eyes shut when he lifted a hand and-

... wiped a tear on your cheek.

You didn't even remember the stone until he pried it from your hand and interlaced your fingers with his, pulling you up with him and into his embrace as he lightly petted your head.

Was he... comforting you?

It would've worked well if uh, he didn't reek of blood and dust.

Staying still as if your life depended on it (it probably did), you let him do as he pleased.

He pulled away from you but kept a gentle grip on your hand, nodding his head in the direction of the tunnels. You couldn't be bothered to question anything anymore, shock was the only thing that kept the fatigue from catching up.

He led you down countless tunnels and caverns, passing by bodies mangled beyond recognition, except for one. You were pretty sure that one was the cretin.

The entire time, the hold his hand had on yours was nothing short of soft and comforting, it almost warmed your heart. Almost.

Eventually, you found where he was taking you, back to the entrance of the mineshaft. He let go of your hand and urged you to the opening. Hesitantly stepping forward, you paused and looked back. He still stood there, though less menacing than he was before despite all the blood and dirt caked on him.

"I- uh... thank you."

Your voice was shaky from processing the events of the past few hours and you had no requirement to thank him, but you felt like you'd regret it if you didn't. The sentiment came across, and he nodded, reaching up again to trace a thumb on your cheek before giving it an affectionate pinch. You watched as he turned and left back into the abyss of the mines, disappearing into the cavern.

It was still dark outside, but you knew the way back from here. You were no longer shaking, nor seething, and the walk back home was oddly peaceful for it being so late in the night.

So what if you might want to see him again?

Bonus

The next morning, you woke up with your eyes feeling raw and your feet sore, but work calls and you had to get up nonetheless.

Nursing a cup of coffee, you checked your door for any mail, instead finding a bright red, heart-shaped box at your doorstep. Fortunately, it didn't contain any beating human heart as the urban legends told, but interestingly enough, a single wild rose and a card.

"Happy Valentines, won't you be mine? - Harry"

[thejoshuaglenn-blog]

You're a Good Boy, Charlie Brown

The key purpose of a Tumblr blog here is really a brain dump: logging thoughts, feelings, narrative and such is easier in long form than via a brief Facebook post that generates half a dozen "oh no, what happened" comments. As I'm writing this, most of it seems like bullet points and organized timelines. If you're looking for a TL;DR or current state of thoughts, it's the last section titled The Day After, and the Day After That.

A few days ago, Niko and I said goodbye to our first dog, Charlie Brown.

I'm not keen to chat about it a lot. There's more to process than I have time to type; most of it centers around being fair to myself and to Niko, taking the time to appreciate his life without beating ourselves up, and avoiding the overwhelming mire that grief can become.

Joining the Family

CB was a rescue, a hapless victim of the 2016 Louisiana floods and a happy-go-lucky participant in a "dog for a day" event hosted by a local shelter. I fully expected to rent him out for a day, give him a few great experiences, and return him. For myriad reasons, we never did bring him back to Pet Rescue by Judy, and he's been with us ever since.

At adoption, he was estimated to be around 4-8 years old. With a kicked-in shoulder that offset his collarbone and ribcage, some assorted dental issues, and other little signs of damage (cigarette burns, what the heck is wrong with people), it was tough to really gauge his age. That means he left this world at the ripe old age of something like 9-13, which isn't terrible considering all he'd been through.

Charlie Brown was the iconic good boy. He seldom barked, he never licked or jumped, and just wanted to be in the same room as his favorite people. He had a few toys that he cherished, never ripping them up, just carrying them with him from room to room and whining a bit, unsure of where he could store them for safekeeping. Apart from some separation anxiety issues and an occasional urge to bolt out the door and book it as far as he could, CB was by all accounts an easy first dog: more like a low-effort cat than anything else.

Slowly Falling Apart

Over time, the health issues increased. Intermittent but predictably regular upset tummy. Bad gums, bad teeth. Random gooey skin lesion. Eye ulcers. Since October, we've been averaging 2-3 unplanned vet visits a month — many incurring some hefty bills. We'd take out another credit card, find another financing plan, but it adds up. So does the emotional toil on the family; so does the anxiety toll on the dog.

You start to think about quality of life for the dog, you know? He'd had a few teeth removed to sew up his gums after they kinda detached and fell apart from his jawbone — so he couldn't chew anything hard. Couldn't even chew a tennis ball, which was the only toy he took interest in anymore. Couldn't have any fun treats like peanut butter or other soft chews, as his tummy would have bad flare-ups that usually ended up with him attached to an IV bag. After finally settling in and learning to play well with Atlas, Charlie Brown started to get pretty irritable whenever Atlas got frisky.

He still loved running around outdoors, and was in otherwise great health.

I can't tell you how guilty that makes me feel, even now.

Moving to Waltham

Before we left Orlando, there were so many crisis moments in emergency vet offices where Niko and I talked about how long he could ride this roller coaster. CB obviously was not a fan of vet visits: loved the staff, but was notably anxious and panicky when separated from us, and he had grown very loathe to the process of poking, prodding, and whatnot.

Shortly after moving to Waltham (he was a champ in the U-Haul), Charlie Brown had a severe colitis flare-up. He was losing so much fluid and was growing very lethargic over the day. Vets are hard to get into these days: with the sweep of "pandemic puppy" adoptions, the vet industry as a whole is saturated with demand, and practices are responding as best they can. There were just no emergency clinics available to us within 20 miles, except one that noted "we have no availability, but you can come and wait, and we might be able to see you in 4 or 5 hours." So we did.

It was a very late night. Charlie Brown came home with us with another round of the same antibiotics he'd been taking almost regularly since December for his assorted ailments, and some probiotics. The next day, CB seemed a bit better and brighter, and Niko and I went into the city for part of the day. We came home to find he'd had an accident, but it was just... blood. So so much. And he looked so in pain, so ashamed, so guilty, so anxious.

So we went back to the vet ER. It was another very late night. I didn't know how many of these late nights we could afford; neither of us knew how many of these late nights it was fair to expect Charlie Brown to endure.

Do you plan on letting a pet go after an extended crisis visit? Do you plan on letting a pet go in a time of relative peace?

Camping Analogy, and a Best Last Day

When you're off on a long hike, and you see daylight start to fade as the sun begins to set, you begin to think about finding a good place to set up camp for the night. It's abysmal to do this after the sun has already gone down: where you could have had preparation and structure, you have chaos by flashlight.

A dog's life is in your hands. You're his whole world: all food, adventure, pampering, challenge, treatment, and care come from you. More than anything, we wanted Charlie Brown to have a peaceful, restful life. Now that we started thinking about it, we wanted to be able to give him a peaceful, restful passing as well: not as the climax of another overnight crisis with injections and yelps and beeps and cowering and anxiety and fear, but in the still quiet of familiar sounds and smells.

His very last day was a great one. Fresh Pond in Cambridge: a massive stroll around a colossal lake with an absurd bounty of new smells, kind people, happy dogs, and a brisk New England breeze. He got to swim in a little side pond — that boy lived for jumping into random lakes. He ran around the broad field that is Kingsley Bowl, chasing a thrown ball the very very farthest his sad pop could throw it — and he brought it back. We bought him a steak. We told him how much he brought to our lives.

And then we waited.

Lap of Love is a sort of home delivery service of dignified passing for pets. There's more to say on that hour than I care to pen, but throughout the procedure, we never left him. Charlie Brown passed enveloped in our arms and laps and sobs and hugs.

The Day After, and the Day After That

The rest is just thoughts. Your head starts to feel like a coffee shop where your grief comes in, sits at a table with you, and unloads. You nod, listen, and wish them well. I hope I can keep processing this way — I find it helpful, and less overwhelming.

I wish he had been able to play with his tennis ball more. Since his jaw surgery — even out on Kingsley Bowl, nearly a month and a half after he should have been fully healed — any kind of chewing would cause renewed bleeding and pain.

I wish we had hugged him more. But truth be told, he didn't like hugs. They made him uncomfortable. So we gave him a hand to lay his head on, or a knee for him to pop his head upon, as often as he liked.

There were so many times I felt inconvenienced by owning a dog at all. They weren't the majority, but... now each remembered time feels like a splinter of selfishness.

I miss how familiar the back of his neck felt under my hand, just behind the ears, where the waves of fur meet and crash and make a long cowlick of foof and fluff.

His happy smile and his stressed smile were very similar, but you could still tell which was which.

I loved being there for him in thunderstorms.

When you think about it, we sort of were hospice care for him. We weren't his original owners; we just wanted the rest of his life to be painless and fulfilling. He had so many trust issues when he first came to us. And in the end, he loved anyone he met.

I miss feeling around with my feet to make sure I don't step on him on my way to bed. I miss setting my feet on the floor as I wake, stooping down, and giving his head a good squishy rub.

He never did get to see Boston snow. I mean... thousands of dogs never get to see snow. But I was really looking forward to sharing that experience with him.

I wanted so badly to bring him to a point of health, and then say goodbye when he was feeling well. Seeing him have his Best Last Day, part of me whispered "murderer" with cold accuracy, and I have a hard time shaking it. He was so happy — but between jaw bleeding after playing with a tennis ball, seeing him scratch his eyes that were starting to ache with ulcers again... I know the unbridled happiness came with the reality of his declining health.

Atlas was the best thing that ever happened to that boy. I know Charlie Brown was at least a little disgruntled that his easy-going day-to-day had been interrupted by a chompy puppy, but Atlas brought out the young pup in CB: ripping palm fronds to shreds, playing tug, playing tag, meeting new dogs with confidence and assurance.

I used to get so mad at my mother-in-law for feeding Charlie Brown cinnamon donuts. I wish I'd given him more. Heck, I wish I'd given him more peanut butter. I'm frankly surprised he hadn't died of peanut butter overdose years ago.

Where Charlie's health had limits, we kept going with Atlas. That might mean taking Atlas out to play with a ball or a tug toy, because CB couldn't. It breaks my heart now to think of Charlie at the glass door just watching it happen, all because he physically couldn't play the same. I know he didn't understand that.

We took him out to Park Ave maybe once or twice. I wish it had been more. Truth be told, it was the same as the dog park, though: he was kind of a loner. Loads of people or dogs made him anxious. So while I might idealize the past and wish he had sat at our legs for lunch after lunch at an outdoor thoroughfare, ... I think he would have been miserable. I think he would have rather just curled up at the base of the couch and dozed while we watched a show.

He was so trusting. I could just drag him onto his back and onto my lap for cuddles and a good tummy rub. No complaints.

He looked so gaunt these past few months. I keep looking at earlier photos, and I really didn't realize just how grizzly and drawn he had become lately.

I miss seeing him randomly waiting for me outside the bathroom door — or curled up on the bath mat while I was in the shower, having sneakily nosed the door open and wanting my company while I was rinsing.

For his first few years with us, he was incredibly playful. I've been going through old videos — it's like going outside just blew his mind, and toys were either for cherishing daintily, or thrashing about and throwing to oneself and gnawing. He lost that after a time. He regained it a bit when Atlas joined the party. But it still faded. I'm sure that's inevitable, but it makes me sad to see the early vibrant puppy in those old recordings, and how different he had been in recent months.

[turtlesandfrogs]

Hello! I have unmedicated ADHD, and have been using the bullet journal method since before it was cool (in fact, when I found it, it was not too different from what I had already been doing), and I saw a reblog lamenting the above. So, I decided to share how I use it.

Let me break it down, with pictures, including some from while I was on meds. My style is almost strictly utilitarian- the one exception is for colored pens, because they motivate my ADHD brain like whoa.

In my opinion, the two most important parts are the method of writing/using lists & the brain dump page. Those are the two I still use, even without exterior reminders. Here is a key to how to mark up your lists:

Basically, write a dot for each task. When you start it, put a slash through that task. When you complete it, cross it out. If you didn't get to it but still want to get it done, make a little >. Personally, I found the additional marks to be too much, at least while unmedicated.

Here's an example from when I had meds:

Unmedicated, that looks chaotic as hell and overwhelming- and I'm the one who made it!

This is what it looks like today, after 6 years of bullet journaling:

Each day, I make a list of the tasks I'll need help remembering to do. This is a pretty light week, since I'm off work, it's a holiday I don't celebrate, and that booster shot hit hard. I try to cross them off as I go, and each day gets a new color. If I forgot to x, /, or > it, it gets done with whatever the color of the day is. If I'm not going to do it, I cross it out.

The brain dump page is the other biggie for me, and it is exactly what it sounds like: a page to write down all those stray thoughts so you can focus (better). Here's an old example:

I found these most useful when I was studying, doing paperwork, grading, etc. Just a page nearby that I write down all those thoughts I'm worried I'll forget.

The next item is the index, and the point here is not to set out a structure ahead of time, but rather, when you put a new thing in, to write down the page number where it can be found. Here's an example from the currant notebook:

Right now, I think the ideal would be to have my daily lists in the front, and have different pages in the back. Instead of intermingled as they are now.

Hopefully that was helpful. I will probably make another, more clear post on this topic in the future.

Still reeling from the realization that bullet journaling was essentially created to be a disability aid and got legit fuckin gentrified

[faithfelled-blog]

                PLEASE  NOTE  :     this  post  deals  more  with  the  medical     &&     firearm  side  of  things     &&     touches  very  little  on  fan theories     (     such  as  :     bethfoot,  beth  as  the  cure     /     being  bitten,   dawn  not  being  the  shooter     )     ,  missing  scenes     (     such  as  the  scene  caught  being  filmed  of  beth  driving  away  from  grady or  whatever  was  shot  in  the  white  houses     )      parallels  between  characters,  illusions, the  cagey  actions  of  cast     &&     crew     &&     is  not  meant  to  attempt  to  force  anyone  into  believing  that  beth  is  still  alive     &&     return  to  the  show.  if  you  think  she  is  completely  dead,  that  is  100%  okay.  the  main  purpose  of  this  post  is  to  basically  show  i'm  not  attempting  to  make  an  impossible  thing  possible  with  my  portrayal.  everything  covered  in  this  post  comes  from  people  in  the  healthcare  field     &&     people  knowledgeable  in  firearms  as  well  as  my  own  research.

                LOCATION  :     contrary  to  popular  belief,  head  shots  are  not  automatic  kills.  depending  on  the  angle  of  the  shot     (     something  no  one  is s ure  of  due  to  the  use  of  dutch  angles     &&     theories  that  dawn  is  not  the  shooter     )     it  is  entirely  possible  that  the  bullet  curved  along  her  skull     &&     missed  her  brain  entirely.  in  fact,  the  location  of  the  entry  wound  is  where,  should  you  be  shot  in  the  head,  you  would  want  to  be  hit  as  the  chance  at  survival     &&     even  minimum  complications  is  high.  even  if  the  bullet  did  not  curve,  the  parts  of  the  brain  potentially  hit  are  not  life  threatening  or  even  incredibly  important  compared  to  other  areas     &&     as  the  brain  is  remarkably  elastic     &&     able  to  heal  itself,  it's  possible  surgery  would  not  even  be  required.

                       if  it  was,  indeed,  dawn  who  pulled  the  trigger,  it  almost  completely  proves  that  the  bullet  curved  at  some  point.  given  the  low  level  of  the  gun,  the  bullet  would  have  exited  at  the  top  of  her  head  as  opposed  to  the  back.  it  is  surprising,  alone,  that  she  managed  to  hit  beth  in  the  forehead  instead  of  under  the  chin  which,  almost  always,  would  lead  to  an  instant  kill  shot.

                   THE  BULLET  :     dawns  weapon  is  a  9mm,  one  of  the  smallest   shown  on  the  show.  small  bullet  means  small  entrance  wound  means  small  exit  would.  typically  head  shots  on  the  show  are  a  lot  bloodier  but  they  are  often  done  with  ricks  gun  which  is  a  fucking  monster.  the  smaller  caliber  also  means  smaller  damage  done.  contrary  to  what  a  lot  of  people  say,  there  is  no  brain  matter  when  beth  is  shot.  what  you  see  if  blood     &&     likely  bone  from  her  skull.  dawn,  on  the  other  hand,  is  turned  into  a  mess.  the  caliber  of  daryls  gun  is  larger  so  the  wound  is  larger     (     it  is  also  possible  that  given  what  happened  a  moment  or  two  before,  his  aim  was  a  little  off,  his  hand  a  little  unsteady  which  would  also  cause  great  damage.     )

                    the  fact  that  there  is  an  exit  wound  is  a  good  thing,  though  it  might  not  seem  that  way.  it  means  that  the  bullet  is  not  ricocheting  around  her  skull,  working  to  turn  her  brain  to  mush.  that,  certainly,  would  have  killed  her.

                HERAPIN  :     beth  was  given  at  least  one  large  dose  of  herapin  at  grady  :     when  she  wakes,  there  is  a  1,000  ml/cc  bag  attached  to  her  iv  stand.  herapin  is  an  anticoagulant,  a  blood  thinner     &&     truthfully,  there  is  no  reason  from  what  we  have  been  given  in  terms  of  information  for  her  to  receive  it.  while  it  could  potentially  be  used  to  prevent  blood  clots  after  a  bone  break,  such  breaks  are  typically  found  in  the  legs     &&     while  you  could  argue  it  is  used  for  her  arm,  the  type  of  cast  used                    soft,  padded,  removable     &&     replaced  throughout  her  time  at  grady                    suggests  that  the  injury  on  her  arm  is  not  that  bad.  even  a  fracture,  as  it  is  said  to  be,  would  require  a  different  sort  of  cast  as  opposed  to  one  designed  for  mobility.

                  the  bag  used  is  also  suspect  as  it  is  abnormally  large.  while  there  are  bags  that  large,  they  are  typically  used  for  accute  stroke  victims.  beths  fractured  wrist     &&     "  superficial  head  wound  "     would  not  warrant  such  a  large  dose,  especially  since  grady  is  all  about  conserving  precious  resources.  this  fact  helped  cement  the  theory  that  beth  had  been  bit     &&     was  grady's  attempt  to  find  a  cute  that  doesn't involve  amputation.

                  the  use  of herapin  is  also  possibly  the  reason  her  facial  injuries  were  so  heavily  stitched.

               BLOOD  :     regardless  of  the  herapin,  there  was  very  little  blood  for  the  type  of  injury  sustained     (     one  theory  is  that  it  is  not  beths  blood  at  all,  but  rather  dawns     )     which  backs  up  the  curved  trajectory  theory.  head  wounds  are  notorious  for  heavy  blood  flow,  even  a  simply  cut  has  the  capability  of  making  you  look  like  a  murderer  or  murder  victim.  however,  the  bleeding  shown  appears  to  be  minimal  which  suggests  clotting.  in  the  handful  of  moments  from  the  gun  shot  to  seeing  a  glimpse  of  the  body,  the  flow  has  slowed.  by  the     (     odd,  contorted     )     positioning  of  beth  post  fall,  we  can  see  that  the  pool  of  blood  is  not  that  large  at  all.

                  this  is  further  backed  up  by  the  view  we  get  when  daryl  carries  her  out  as  well  as  bts  footage.  she  is  not  soaked  in  blood  as  one  would  assume  of  a  head  shot.  rather,  there  is  blood  on  her  forehad,  the  back  of  her  head     &&     very  little  on  her  clothes.  for  a  show  that  seems  to  have  attended  the  school  of  '  MORE  BLOOD  IS  BETTER  '     this  seems  odd.

                  the  slow  of  blood  flow  suggests  clotting  which,  in  turn  suggests  that  she,  at  least  at  that  point,  is  still  alive.  you  do  not  clot  when  you  are  dead.

               GRADY  :     when  someone  asks  someone  else  with  a  knowledge  of  firearms  or  medicine  their  thoughts  of  this  event,  their  first  reaction  tends  to  be  that  the  injury  is  survivable     &&     their  second  tends  to  be  that  even  if  it  wasn't,  she  was  shot  in  the  best  possible  place                    a  miraculously  operational  hospital.  while  we  don't  know  the  extent  of  their  abilities     &&     just  how  operational  grady  really  is,  we  know  there  is  medicine  as  well  as  a  doctor,  one  who  might  feel  so  inclined  to  provide  aid  as     a  )     beth  is  not  a  threat  to  his  position     &&     b  )     despite  their  problems,  it  seems  as  he  was,  to  some  degree,  fond  of  her.  at  the  very  least,  it  is  possible  they  might  feel  guilt  over  what  happened.

                with  an  injury  such  as  hers                    already  clotted,  likely  minimal  to  no  swelling,  an  exit  would  meaning  there  is  not  chunk  of  metal  chilling  in  her  brain  nor  is  there  irreparable  damage                    the  most  important  things  would  be  to  clean  the  site     &&     ensure  there  is  no  development  of  infection.  all  things  that  are  capable  of  being  done  in  even  a  minimally  resourced  hospital  as  long  as  there  is  someone  with  medical  training.

                it's  highly  likely  that,  due  to  it  being  a  head  wound,  no  one  thought  to  check  for  a  pulse.  it's  common,  it  happens.  emotions  are  high,  instincts  tell  you  a  wound  like  that  is  fatal,  you've  spent  who  knows  how  long  protecting  yourself     &&     others  with  the  same  sort  of  attack.  we  know  she  was  removed  from  the  hospital  but  after  is  a  mystery.  immediately  after,  they  skip  ahead,  set  out  with  the  intention  of  having  us  believe  tyreese's  funeral  is  beths,  something  stated  on  live  television.

               there  was  word  of  a  large  herd  in  coda,  nicotero  himself  stating  that  around  500  walkers  were  used.  there's  several  walkers  deliberately  made  up  to  reference  beth     (     as  well  as  tweets  from  grady  actors  about  how  they  might  be  back,  suspicious  wording     &&     actions  from  showrunners     &&     other  actors     )     sparking  a  belief  that  she  might  have  been  left  behind                    possibly  in  a  car  trunk  judging  by  maggies  reaction  to  finding  a  walker  in  the  trunk  of  a  car.  while  it  is  not  ideal,  it  is  not  a  death  sentence.  bodies  are  remarkably  resilient  when  faced  with  trauma.  if  her  head  had  truly  clotted,  it  is  entirely  possible  that  her  body  would  shut  down  to  protect  itself  until  help  arrives  so  long  as  it  does  not  take  forever,

                if  there  had  indeed  been  a  herd,  it's  possible  they  would  have  moved  to  follow  the  group.  likely,  an  officer  or  two  would  have  come  to  dispatch  stragglers  in  order  to  keep  the  area  open  as  it's  not  near  the  elevator  well  where  they're  shown  to  to  use  as  a  dump.  should  they  have  stumbled  across  her  or  even  known  she  had  been  hidden     &&     found  a  pulse  they  would  have  brought  her  inside  for  aid  should  it  be  possible.  despite  the  things  that  went  on  within  the  hospital,  there  were  people  who  seemed  to  genuinely  care  about  helping  others  in  need.

                EFFECTS  OF  INJURY  :     depending  on  how  the  bullet  moved  inside  of  her  skull,  beth  could  face  little  to  no  brain  related  problems  afterward.  there  would  be  no  loss  of  motor  skills,  no  loss  of  verbalization  or  ability  to  read  or  write.  however,  it  is  important  to  note  that  this  is  a  traumatic  injury     &&     the  brain  will  work  to  protect  itself,  which  may  manifest  in  different  ways  :     amnesia  of  differing  degrees,  the  switch  from  primarily  verbal  communication  to  write  or  physical,  an  increase  in  anger  or  violence,  faulty  facial  recognition,  etc.  how  long  effects  such  as  these  last  is  never  certain     &&     may  come     &&     go  demanding  on  the  quality  of  life                    meaning  being  alone  on  the  road  would  likely  be  worse  than  settling  down  with  others  who  can  aid  her.

                       ideally,  finding  the  group  would  be  best  toward  further  healing  as  the  brain  would  recognize  them     &&     work  to  fill  in  the  gaps,  however  it  could  also  hurt     &&     hinder  depending  on  the  reception  given.  aggravating  her     &&     attempting  to  force  things  could  easily  backfire.  likely,  the  most  effective  way  is  to  allow  her  her  space  to  work  through  things  on  her  own  while  ensuring  that  she  has  someone  watching  her  without  applying  pressure.